When he moved to a new housing tract in nearby Rocklin, Justin hung out there. "She was worried about him committing suicide, " the friend's mother recalls. "I still cannot explain what I've done, " he said as he was sentenced early this year to life in prison. There was no steady boyfriend to question. "The signs that we are trained to look for were not there, " he says, noting that Justin had virtually no criminal record.
But the prosecutor persuaded her to endorse a plea deal that dismissed one of the charges and allowed Weinberger to cleanse his record--if he paid restitution and underwent anger management counseling. But the local kids barely tolerated this nerdy newcomer who wore plaid shirts and visors. As he aimed the BMW down the highway, he said, Courtney was frightened. Although he shed tears, he was composed enough to speak at his mother's memorial service a few weeks later. However, about two years ago I did something truly awful behind his back, something that haunts me to this day and continues to eat away at my very core. She doted on Justin, dressed with flair and drove sporty cars.
He also fretted that the publicity would hurt his career. They hung out at the skate rink and Courtney's school. Normally, Hittmeier says, the agents might have just asked the father to let them know when his son returned. The way my dad was talking it made it seem like my life was over.... Someone in a chat room was offering: "PRE/TEEN AcTion-HarDcOre, CloSeuPs... " After downloading eight images of girls under 14 from the operator's computer, the detective traced the computer account through phone records to Justin's father. While hundreds of people were questioned, Justin Weinberger went about his life, even attended a friend's birthday barbecue a few days after he had killed. His friends dismissed his behavior as a response to his mother's death. Weinberger assured the agents that Justin would return later that day, and that they would be in contact. He also had violent outbursts, punching holes in a wall at a party and tangling with a friend who threw Weinberger's cat off the bed. She also seemed genuinely concerned when he said he wanted to kill himself. Her family called her the miracle child. They trashed the place.
What would you guys advise? For three days, investigators fanned out, generating so many leads that a task force was formed. He almost made the kidnapping sound like a date--a common fantasy scripted by molesters, experts say. Frantic, he drove around peering into parks, behind buildings, even into dumpsters. They pleaded publicly for the killer's family to turn him in. Then he learned that Justin's best friend had received an odd voice mail from him: The FBI was falsely accusing him of something and he was fleeing. "They showed me that terrible picture, the one that we parents hope we never see, " Mark Sconce recalls. He also asked about his dad's well-being and expressed concern about his car. Justin Weinberger was a child of El Dorado Hills, a short drive from Rancho Cordova and a leap up the economic ladder. After hearing the DNA results, he said he wanted the death penalty, waived his Miranda rights and freely told his story. Once Justin got home, he said his father told him investigators had traced the visor. He had no lifelong rap sheet, as did the man who snatched 12-year-old Polly Klaas from a slumber party in Petaluma and murdered her in 1993. The families of the killer and his victim have struggled, too. According to the video, a letter to his best friend, and interviews with those who knew Weinberger, the ingredients for rage and violence were churning within him, mixed into dysfunction and loneliness hidden behind the veneer of suburban normalcy.
Naked, he roared away, Courtney's flowers still in the car. Children and parents broke down as they clung to one another and gazed at photographs of Courtney Hannah Sconce. But they also discovered newspapers featuring stories about Courtney's murder, photos of Weinberger wearing sunglasses like those with her body, and T-shirts and boxer shorts similar to ones found at the murder scene. He played chess with his best friend and sailed with his parents. He turned to tequila to numb the pain. But he was protective of his father, saying the older man had not looked at kiddie porn for years and had warned Justin to stay away from it because the FBI might come after him. Using a list of local retailers from an Adidas representative, he learned that 21 visors had been purchased with credit cards in the Sacramento area. I'd've drawn the line at 16 and never claimed my dad had been viewing naked people any younger than that, because obviously that definitely would've had my boyfriend marching down to the police station. But one magistrate declined to sign it because he knew the senior Weinberger.
Finally, he packed up his family and moved away from his house full of memories that was only a few doors from Courtney's Corner. When he finished, he said she dressed and they sat watching the current and talking. "I'll see you in Sacramento, " Timberlake told him. And they went home with the damning evidence and something even more important--a DNA sample earlier obtained by Raton police at their request. Michael Weinberger, who continues to work at the attorney general's office, "is torn apart by this, " his attorney says. He dropped off to sleep but awoke in the morning in his own bed, not knowing how he got there. When Special Agent Bill Nicholson set out to track the blue Adidas visor, he feared there were a million of them. Grabbing another girl crossed his mind. During his confession, Weinberger painted a twisted backdrop for his crimes, blaming others without excusing himself. When friends confronted Justin, he told them he was depressed--but not enough to hurt himself.
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